Trials, tribulations, tales and titillations from a 40- something year old, Scot, determined to stave of his cultural and genetic destiny with sporadic efforts to attain Physical perfection impaired by unhelpful refueling strategies and familial responsibilities.

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

So, it's the big 10km race in Inverness this Sunday and I can't wait. Training has been pretty piss poor if I'm honest though. Putting a 2 week family holiday into the schedule just 3 weeks before the event smacks of poor planning... getting lashed on the vino most night smacks of an irresponsible lack of commitment... ho hum!

I thought I'd put myself to the test as best I can this week to check my form though.

Saturday's 5km parkrun saw me record a personal best 24:40. To be fair it's notth emost accurate timing in the world and I could probably claim a few seconds back for the way the start is organised... but I won't.Using the Running for Fitness website that gives a predicted VO2 max of 38.9.According to the VO2 max normalised tables (find them here) that's not much better than average.The mitigating factor here would have to be that the Glasgow Parkrun is a bit of a beast with 2 laps of a fairly hilly route, but average is less than good in my book!

Anyway, I went to the gym today and did a V02 max test on the treadmill (5 min test walking at 7.3 km/hour). Estimated VO2 max was 44.3 (that's above 'above average' and into 'good', which is in the very good category and I'm much happier with that... until I relise this means a predicted 10km time of 45:50... I'd be ecstatic with that... in fact 47min would be an awesome 10km run for me...

Quickly rubbing the gloss of that result though was the O'Neal rowing test on the concept2 Rowers, where my meagre 990m is still below average... I think I'm going to assume that the only people they actually measured doing this test were keen rowers with the physique for rowing... unlike my short legged, long backed, not very flexible one...

What does all this mean? It probably means that I could run a half decent 10km if I put my mind to it properly and even if I plod I should still be running much faster that I have been in the recent past...